Prediction Held up
Used car demand will jump over the next two quarters
“So my hunch is that demand for used cars over the next couple of quarters is going to jump because of everything that's kind of going on.”
Prediction Held up
Arison: Used car demand will jump as consumers avoid rideshare
“And my guess is that people are also going to try to avoid transportation and avoid ride sharing, right? So my hunch is that demand for used cars over the next couple of quarters is going to jump because of everything that's kind of going on.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Arison: Shift's pre-IPO unit economics are much stronger than Carvana's were
“Our unit economics generally have been a lot stronger than theirs were prior to IPO.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Arison: Market will see 60-to-90-day fundraising freeze from COVID
“I think in practice, there's going to be a bunker mentality out there for 60 to 90 days. And so nothing's going to happen. And I think we all need to bunker down and kind of get ready for that.”
Opinion
Arison: Online Auto Retailers Can Credibly IPO at 15,000 Annual Car Sales
“I think what really matters is volume. Like once you're past 15,000 cars a year, I think it's credible to go out public. At least based on what I'm hearing from investors, right? I've spent a lot of time with public market investors, and that's kind of their g…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Shift's unit economics are much stronger than Carvana's were pre-IPO
“Our unit economics generally have been a lot stronger than theirs were prior to IPO.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Shift targets a potential 2021 IPO based on revenue projections
“Because if we do the revenue and the volume that we're projecting, we'd be in fairly good shape to go public next year. Now, again, who knows what happens and things might get delayed and change and whatnot.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Shift sees twice as much demand for sub-$12k used cars
“You would be surprised, but the twice as much demand is for the happens for those cars. That's where everything else even though they're older.”
Assertion Partly supported
Top US car retailers hold less than 1% of the overall market
“The largest car seller that sells new, new and used sells about a million cars a year. I, AutoNation. So like, and then CarMax is a used car only seller, also does about seven and 50,000 used, right? So the largest players have like sub one percent of the mark…”
Insight
Captive auto lending requires $100M in quarterly securitization
“Until you're doing about a hundred million dollars of securitization every quarter, it's too expensive to do your own loans.”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Arison: Carvana averaged 120 days to sell inventory at IPO
“When they went public, I think it were at a 120 days.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Arison: VC market will face a 60-to-90 day fundraising freeze
“I think in practice, there's going to be a bunker mentality out there for 60 to 90 days. And so nothing's going to happen.”
Insight
Arison: Companies should avoid captive lending in weak economies
“That's actually another reason not to be doing capital lending right now is because when the economy's weaker, you don't want to be doing your own loans because you just don't know what's going to happen.”
Insight
Online auto retailers become IPO-ready at 15,000 cars sold annually
“I think what really matters is volume. Like once you're past 15,000 cars a year, I think it's credible to go out public. At least based on what I'm hearing from investors, right? I've spent a lot of time with public market investors, and that's kind of their g…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Arison: Shift sees twice the demand for sub-$12k cars
“And we have a segment in our business that we call Value Auto. So these are cars that are below 12,000 dollars in price and over 80,000 miles on them. They're actually very, very popular. You would be surprised, but the twice as much demand is for the happens …”
Insight
Arison: Captive auto lending requires $100M in quarterly securitizations to be viable
“But what you learn over time is that until you're doing about a hundred million dollars of securitization every quarter it's too expensive to do your own loans.”
Assertion Partly supported
Arison: Carvana held inventory for 120 days at IPO
“I don't know what Carvana's read right now, but when they went public, I think it were at a 120 days. It was definitely, definitely shorter than their IPO”
Assertion Supported
Shift sells up to 12-year-old cars whereas Vroom caps at four
“When you look at our inventory we have cars that are anywhere from zero to you know, 12 years in age, whereas Vroom only has cars that are roughly, you know, zero to four years in age because if there's no test drive involved, it's kind of hard to convince som…”
Disclosure
Shift: Value Auto inventory represents 20% to 30% of sales
“And that was a pretty big part of our business is about 20 to 25 to 30% of our business.”
Assertion Partly supported
Arison: Shift sold 11,500 cars in 2019
“And if you could take our Cager in terms of volume, and we finished last year with 11,500 cars.”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Arison: Shift has served 60,000 lifetime buyers and sellers
“We've serviced about 60,000 customers in the life of the company on both the sell side and the buy side.”
Disclosure
Shift's average vehicle selling price ranges between $15,000 and $17,000
“Our average price ranges by time of year and kind of how we manage the inventory, but somewhere between 15 and 17,000 dollars.”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Sixty-five percent of Shift's car buyers utilize financing
“65% do financing.”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Arison: Shift Will Launch Captive Lending by 2024 or 2025
“So eventually, you know, out in 20, 24, 25, we will do capital loans, but we just need to grow to be large enough before we can do that.”
George Arison